You are absolutely correct, focusing exclusively on the tool is easier, and likely less risky. I enjoyed reading your post. I do believe we are on the exact same page with this.

Andy-

You make an excellent point about the way a conference is set up. I do think this is somewhat symptomatic of the focus to try and draw a crowd by accepting presentations based on what is perceived as being popular. Most often that perception leads to the buzzword focus.

Vinnie-

I was sorry to miss your presentation. I wish there were more like yours at the conference.

Will-

Very poignant point about the assessment. Is it that we simply want them to engage the tool, or is it the nature and quality of the learning that the tool produces? A question you already answered, but one that isn’t being discussed enough. I do think it’s still a bit nascent as well, but it’s gaining momentum, and if we don’t begin to shift the focus away from simple acquisition and execution of tools now, we’re going to have a tremendous problem when the new web tools begin to reach saturation in education.

Doug-

Any chance you can drop a link here, so we can read your post? Glad you’re continuing the conversation

Chris-

Hey back. You have won my “Most Academic and Thought Provoking” comment of the year award. It’s very prestigious and coveted world-wide.

My Twebate with Gary yesterday (following yours with Bud) had me losing sleep last night over his very valid, main point: what is good practice with Web 2.0? And the implied point of where is anyone really defining what good assessment around this stuff looks like. If we’re giving kids A’s for being able to publish a blog post, or to even write well in that blog post, Gary’s right to be concerned. I’ll cut some slack to all of this in terms of the nascence of all of this still for most people. But I’ve been watching a lot of this pretty much stand still for eight years now. We ought to be demanding better.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. This is why in my ICE Presentation, Students as Historians, Amy Kenyon and I laid out the goals as stated by both the NCTE and NCSS for collaboration, connection, and visual literacies, to explain why we had selected to use VoiceThread as a platform to meet those goals. It is all about the goals and different ways to reach them, not the tools. Well stated.

Frankly, I would much prefer to attend a smaller conference with more “juried” presentations. I would love to feel that I’m being challenged by presenters and that what I’m seeing is relevant and sufficiently deep.

I think that I’ve been guilty at times in the past of wasting teacher’s time presenting tools, thinly disguised as pedagogy. To that end, I’ve done a disservice to them as professionals and to myself as an educator. Recently, as I’ve tried to change my viewpoint, preparation and presentations on ed-tech, I’ve seen the discourse change in the schools. It’s caused me to grow as a professional and I hope that it’s helped affect a spoonful of change in some classrooms too.

“Oh – now that I know how to use ___________ I can present at a conference!”

So they do. Situating the use of those tools in powerful learning contexts that are built on solid pedagogical frameworks is much more difficult. Justifying the use of some tools in this way is next to impossible due to a lack of current research or compelling evidence. So, we focus on the tool and squeeze in a little anecdotal or hypothetical support for its use. It’s just easier… and professionally irresponsible. Tonight on Twitter Gary Stager expressed his frustration with similar ideas. I must say that I agree with him.

I wrote a post similar to yours a while back. http://snurl.com/dmzvr